The latest version of Blender 3D the open source 3D animation and modelling application and is ready to download from blender.org.

For anyone interested into 3D and animation or for indie/small studios Blender is a ideal alternative to the overpriced and quite often over-bloated commercial applications available on the market and being open source it is everyone’s favourite price 😉

Blender also has a built in games engine and node base compositor making it a very powerful application with superb community support and online training/tutorials.

This version is called a “Beta” because it’s now for the most part feature complete. The Python API has had some extensive changes, most notably in naming conventions and in creation and access of properties.

Since Blender 2.55 beta over 440 bugs were fixed!

IMPORTANT: Between 2.53 and 2.56 an extensive renaming operation has changed the scripting API a lot, with repercussions also for loading 2.53 .blends with animation into 2.56. Make sure you try the FCurve/Driver 2.54 fix entry from the Help menu.